CHAPTER 9: Darkness falls
Finally, the night was down all over RJ. Gone were the beaming, summer-like heat of the sun. In its place was now a vacant, cold, and rather depressing blueness to the darkness that could only be described as dull.
One thing that was confusing RJ throughout this part of the night, upon thinking about it, was this; Vincent said his hibernation starts tonight, but says that he must be woken up in a week's time. Isn't it the case that a bear usually hibernates for MUCH longer? It was strange stuff indeed.
RJ, in the midst of the darkness, completely clueless as to what he should do in regards to Vincent next, walked over towards the vending machine that was still as lit as a Christmas tree despite it being dark. RJ took off his small mini golf bag, slotting it carefully onto the ground, to reach in and pull out that silver coin he had retrieved from the floor; now, with it being dark and so on, RJ was free to grab his food, even though it's just one packet. Any food is better than no food, after all.
RJ slowly lifted the coin up towards the slot of the machine, as the darkness surrounded his miniature self, creating a somewhat spooky and unpredictable woods; gone were the bird chirps as they all slept in for the night. That didn't stop RJ from wanting to get his food, though.
Acknowledging that he needed to press a three-digit code to get the machine to release the slot the final packet was at, RJ used his golf club to dial the numbers, due to him being too small to physically reach the code buttons himself. Upon pressing the right codes, the machine's circle-silver objects you'd usually see holding a food packet from falling, began circling away, making the packet move forwards and forwards, to the brink of falling off.
But as the packet was released, it was so big, and the glass was so close to the food itself, that the packet simply was pushed against the glass, staying on its slot; the packet had just gotten stuck due to the top of it leaning firmly against the glass. RJ, shocked, yet pretty easily angered, dropped his golf club.
The raccoon, angered out of his desperate hunger, kicked the vending machine as hard as he could. Nothing happened. He kicked it once again, nothing happened, with the packet still staying in place. RJ, taking advantage of his small height and size, climbed through the 'grab-me' door where you'd usually grab the food from the vending machine once the packet dropped, and tried his best to reach up for the packet himself.
It was like being in a cave with plenty of rocks bundled together to create a dangerously tight space; the transparent glass became an obstacle for RJ's ability to reach up to the packet of crisps, just dangled right against the glass. After a few more seconds, struggling to reach his arms up higher, RJ withdrew himself from the vending machine.
The raccoon stood there, and placed his arms against his furry hips. He was hungry, so the more this packet of crisps remained stuck in the vending machine, the more irritated he became. He grabbed his small golf bag by his side, as he was in the lightening shadow of the vending machine's transparent, lit up glass, trying to see if he had anything that could knock that packet from its stuck position. He found something; a plastic stick with a controllable plastic frog's mouth on top.
This was perfect; RJ could use the plastic frog's head to grab the packets himself. He moved back towards the vending machine and inserted the small plastic toy in, reaching it upwards; luckily, the transparency of the glass enabled RJ to see it for himself without having to climb into the grab-me segment again. He moved the toy towards the packet, opening the plastic frog's mouth with a button connected to it via a piece of string, briefly inserting the mouth onto the packet. The second it laid a collision on the packet, the thickness of said packets caused the plastic toy to slip off. RJ tried this once again, opening the mouth of the plastic frog, and it slipped off again. For a moment, RJ remained frozen in place, rapidly building up a steam of rage. He sent the plastic frog stick toy bashing against the bottom of the packet to try and lift it out.
That too failed, and, as RJ started sighing in sync with his failed attempts at getting the packet down from its stuck position, he randomly began swinging the frog toy all around the vending machine, whacking it not only against the hard glass rapidly, but also the different slots that used to contain more food in the machine. This was simply a result of RJ's inner rage needing to be let loose.
Unfortunately, that rage had costed the raccoon the plastic toy, for when he stopped doing it, it sprung out of place, and the head had simply collapsed out of its formation. RJ pulled out the broken toy from the vending machine, throwing the plastic stick of it away, before reaching into his golf bag. His eyes widened, for he found another object inside that could perhaps do just the trick.
He pulled out a small yellow, Frisbee-like object, where when you throw it, it flies within the air. RJ's idea was to throw it to the packet from the outside to get it to fall down. The raccoon flung the yellow object into the air, where he subsequently began moving his fingers forwards, making a gesture towards the packet of 'come right here', but when the yellow object slammed harshly against the transparent glass, RJ simply had enough.
"What?" RJ said to himself, at the yellow object seemingly, somehow, failing.
What RJ forgot was that just because the glass was transparent, it doesn't mean anything can go through it. The raccoon forgot about that because of the hunger taking over his entire mindset.
Out of nowhere, RJ began trying various ludicrous ways of getting the packet down from its stuck position, such as climbing back in again, which failed. The raccoon then used his golf club to slam all the buttons on the side that're pressed to choose which food you want, and he simply slammed them rather than pressed them; again, he needed to get rid of his rage. Lastly, the raccoon, releasing the final forms of his rage, kicked the vending machine on its left side with his hardest collisions, with the last kick causing him to hurt his leg.
"OUCH..." RJ said, briefly hopping, holding onto his leg.
Having had enough of this stupid, idiotic machine failing, RJ reached back down to the ground to grab his golf club, and without a single warning, he sent the golf club flinging right into the vending machine, which in turn, caused it to stop working, losing its electrical supply; RJ had just broken it, perhaps unintentionally. But as soon as he did, the reflection of Vincent's mountain behind RJ could be seen from the glass, and this caused RJ to turn around to the mountain itself.
"Huh...Vincent?" RJ said, coming up with a grand plan to get back at Vincent, at long last, "NO BAD, BAD IDEA!" he assured himself, but his stomach said otherwise; it rumbled a thick sound, which caused RJ to give in; he simply had no choice but to try and rob Vincent of his food.
He sighed reluctantly about doing this, but the raccoon had a good plan in place; he knows that Vincent is hibernating at this time, which means that the bear won't be able to see RJ himself stealing all the food. If the raccoon is lucky, he could even be off with the food before Vincent wakes up. Again, RJ had concerns about whether or not Vincent could track him down, but it was a risk worth taking; dying of starvation simply wasn't an option for RJ.
RJ slotted his golf bag right onto a firm position on his back, and took out his little net like contraption. Stopping right in front of Vincent's gigantic mountain, RJ swung his net backwards, before flinging it right from the hook upwards to the mountain, and with just a bit of luck, the hook connected to a bunch of smaller pillars at the edge of the mountain on the top, giving RJ the chance to wind himself all the way up, as if he was flying, to the top of where Vincent keeps his food. Obviously, of course, it's also why Vincent himself is hibernating.
As soon as RJ gained the ground from the net, the hook swung back into place, and the raccoon charged with absolute speed towards Vincent's cave. He slammed himself unintentionally against what felt like a cold, metal wall; RJ looked up, and they were signs stating that a bear was nearby, and they said things like 'WARNING: DO NOT FEED THE BEAR!'.
A sign containing a picture of a bear caused RJ to flinch, but he instantly regained his cool. Clearly, Vincent wanted to collect all these signs when the humans started placing them at the bottom of his mountain, which was how they got all the way up here. Vincent wanted to collect them so more victims could come to the woods without being aware of his presence. Luckily, with Vincent in hibernation mode now, he won't be harming anybody soon.
And as far as RJ goes, he's got the chance to harm Vincent in a stealthy manner right now.
